Observations of spatiotemporal instabilities in the strong-driving regime of an AC-driven nonlinear Schr\"odinger system

Localized dissipative structures (LDS) have been predicted to display a rich array of instabilities, yet systematic experimental studies have remained scarce. We have used a synchronously-driven optical fiber ring resonator to experimentally study LDS instabilities in the strong-driving regime of the AC-driven nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (also known as the Lugiato-Lefever model). Through continuous variation of a single control parameter, we have observed a string of theoretically predicted instability modes, including irregular oscillations and chaotic collapses. Beyond a critical point, we observe behaviour reminiscent of a phase transition: LDSs trigger localized domains of spatiotemporal chaos that invade the surrounding homogeneous state. Our findings directly confirm a number of theoretical predictions, and they highlight that complex LDS instabilities can play a role in experimental systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Going Deeper with Semantics: Video Activity Interpretation using Semantic Contextualization

A deeper understanding of video activities extends beyond recognition of underlying concepts such as actions and objects: constructing deep semantic representations requires reasoning about the semantic relationships among these concepts, often beyond what is directly observed in the data. To this end, we propose an energy minimization framework that leverages large-scale commonsense knowledge bases, such as ConceptNet, to provide contextual cues to establish semantic relationships among entities directly hypothesized from video signal. We mathematically express this using the language of Grenander's canonical pattern generator theory. We show that the use of prior encoded commonsense knowledge alleviate the need for large annotated training datasets and help tackle imbalance in training through prior knowledge. Using three different publicly available datasets - Charades, Microsoft Visual Description Corpus and Breakfast Actions datasets, we show that the proposed model can generate video interpretations whose quality is better than those reported by state-of-the-art approaches, which have substantial training needs. Through extensive experiments, we show that the use of commonsense knowledge from ConceptNet allows the proposed approach to handle various challenges such as training data imbalance, weak features, and complex semantic relationships and visual scenes.Comment: Accepted to WACV 201

Neural Control of Interlimb Oscillations II. Biped and Quadruped Gaits and Bifurications

Behavioral data concerning animal and human gaits and gait transitions are simulated as emergent properties of a central pattern generator (CPG) model. The CPG model is a version of the Ellias-Grossberg oscillator. Its neurons obey Hodgkin-Huxley type equations whose excitatory signals operate on a faster time scale than their inhibitory signals in a recurrent on-center off-surround anatomy. A descending command or GO signal activates the gaits and triggers gait transitions as its amplitude increases. A single model CPG can generate both in-phase and anti-phase oscillations at different GO amplitudes. Phase transition from either in-phase to anti-phase oscillations, or from anti-phase to in-phase oscillations, can occur in different parameter ranges, as the GO signal increases. Quadruped vertebrate gaits, including the amble, the walk, all three pairwise gaits (trot, pace, and gallop), and the pronk are simulated using this property. Rapid gait transitions are simulated in the order walk, trot, pace, and gallop that occurs in the cat, along with the observed increase in oscillation frequency. Precise control of quadruped gait switching uses GO-dependent. modulation of inhibitory interactions, which generates a different functional anatomy at different arousal levels. The primary human gaits (the walk and the run) and elephant gaits (the amble and the walk) are simulated, without modulation, by oscillations with the same phase relationships but different waveform shapes at different GO signal levels, much as the duty cycles of the feet are longer in the walk than in the run. Relevant neural data from spinal cord, globus palliclus, and motor cortex, among other structures, are discussedArmy Research Office (DAAL03-88-K-0088); Advanced Research Projects Agency (90-0083); National Science Foundation (IRI-90-24877); Office of Naval Research (N00014-92-J-1309); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-92-J-0499, F49620-92-J-0225, 90-0128

Associative memory stored by functional novel pathway rather than modifications of preexisting neuronal pathways

Associative conditioning involves changes in the processing pathways activated by sensory information to link the conditioned stimulus (CS) to the conditioned behavior. Thus, conditioning can recruit neuronal elements to form new pathways for the processing of the CS and/or can change the strength of existing pathways. Using a behavioral and systems level electrophysiological approach on a tractable invertebrate circuit generating feeding in the mollusk Lymnaea stagnalis, we identified three independent pathways for the processing of the CS amyl acetate used in appetitive conditioning. Two of these pathways, one suppressing and the other stimulating feeding, mediate responses to the CS in naive animals. The effects ofthese two pathways on feeding behavior are unaltered by conditioning. In contrast, the CS response ofa third stimulatory pathway is significantly enhanced after conditioning, becoming an importantcontributor to the overall CS response. This is unusual because, in most of the previous examples in which naive animals already respond to the CS, memory formation results from changes in the strength of pathways that mediate the existing response. Here, we show that, in the molluscan feeding system, both modified and unmodified pathways are activated in parallel by the CS after conditioning, and it is their integration that results in the conditioned respons

Active inductor shunt peaking in high-speed VCSEL driver design

An all transistor active inductor shunt peaking structure has been used in a prototype of 8-Gbps high-speed VCSEL driver which is designed for the optical link in ATLAS liquid Argon calorimeter upgrade. The VCSEL driver is fabricated in a commercial 0.25-um Silicon-on-Sapphire (SoS) CMOS process for radiation tolerant purpose. The all transistor active inductor shunt peaking is used to overcome the bandwidth limitation from the CMOS process. The peaking structure has the same peaking effect as the passive one, but takes a small area, does not need linear resistors and can overcome the process variation by adjust the peaking strength via an external control. The design has been tapped out, and the prototype has been proofed by the preliminary electrical test results and bit error ratio test results. The driver achieves 8-Gbps data rate as simulated with the peaking. We present the all transistor active inductor shunt peaking structure, simulation and test results in this paper.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures and 1 table, Submitted to 'Chinese Physics C